This site requires JavaScript. To ensure you can use all the features please enable it.

We use cookies on this website.
By continuing to use this site without changing your cookie settings,
you agree that you are happy to accept our privacy policy
and for us to access our cookies on your device.

NECESSARY JOURNEY [Main Title]

Summary: A look behind the scenes at the organisation required for the efficient running of the railway network, especially during wartime.

Description: Film opens with an impression of the complexity involved in coordinating and assembling an expeditionary force at a port, and exemplifies this theme by following a single goods truck (carrying a 'secret weapon') from the factory in the North through the railway system to its destination in the South, including good material on marshalling yard activities and control at a signal-box and central level. Next, film shows (with crude 'supply' and 'demand' diagrams) the pressures put on the system by the war - eg loss of men and materials to war effort, increasing weight of traffic in the West following German blockade of the eastern ports - and shows that problem can only be met by central direction: diagram explains national control by War Transport Ministry.